History of Evangelical Christianity

Unit Overview
The story of the Gospel’s advance in the last 300 years is the story of this unit. Meet John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield in the eighteenth century, and learn lessons for ministry from William Wilberforce, Charles Spurgeon and DL Moody in the nineteenth. More recently, we interact with Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, and the rebirth of evangelicalism witnessed in the life of Billy Graham.

From its roots amongst the Puritans and the Pietists, the evangelical movement has witnessed extraordinary revivals in Europe and North America, seen missionaries sent to the ends of the earth, and has faced the Enlightenment and its challenge to Christian faith. Though contested in the age of Trump, this unit outlines the various ways that “vital piety” has been defended and promoted under modern conditions. Christians do well to interact with the modern and postmodern worlds in which evangelical faith has taken deep root. Ours is a story worth telling.

Please visit the timetable by clicking here for the current dates on when this unit is offered.

Unit Details 

Mode	Online	On-campus
Workload	One semester, 12 credit points	One semester, 12 credit points
Status	Elective	Elective
Unit code	CH011	CH011
Prerequisites	48 Credit points of core foundation units	48 Credit points of core foundation units
Teacher	Rhys Bezzant	Rhys Bezzant

Unit Content
Section A: The Evangelical Movement in its Historical Contexts

1. Beyond the Reformation: Puritanism, Pietism and Jansenism
2. The Enlightenment: friend or foe to the evangelical movement?
3. The Wesleys, Whitefield, and the rise of Methodism
4. Settler societies and the Great Awakenings in the USA
5. Civil War, revivalism, and the end of the American Evangelical consensus
6. The Oxford Movement, the Evangelical Party and the Clapham Sect
7. The impact of biblical criticism (science, liberalism, neo-Orthodoxy and fundamentalism)
8. The Australian colonies and evangelical ministry
9. Evangelicalism and ecumenism, world missions, and totalitarianism
10. English Evangelicalism in the 20th century
11. Australian Evangelicalism in the 20th century
12. Pressure points in Evangelicalism today: eg., ecclesiology, millennial expectations, pentecostalism and postmodernity

Section B: The Evangelical Movement – Primary Sources
Study of not less than two of the following documents:

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
2. William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens
3. Jonathan Edwards, Treatise on the Religious Affections (selections)
4. Charles Simeon, Preface to Horae Homileticae
5. William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System (Selections)
6. Charles Finney, Lectures on Revivals (Selections)
7. Charles Hodge, The Princeton Theology 1812-1921 (Selections)
8. Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students (Selections)
9. The Lausanne Covenant (1974)
10. James Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God
11. John Stott, A Plea for Evangelical Unity
12. John Wesley, Sermons (selections)